NBA MVP watch: Anthony Davis

Topics like MVP candidacy, free agency, playoff runs & top-5 players are always thrown around the league, but it is rare that they are all focused in on one player. In the NBA today, only a few players who can be in small market teams but still be the center of attention of so many people - and the player who is currently on everyone's lips is Anthony Davis.

This season was forecast to be the season that Davis would really show what he was made of any continue his form from last season to make a real push for the MVP.

At only 25 years, Davis has come off of a 2017-2018 season where he averaged 28.1 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 2.3 APG & 2.6 BPG, finished as both an MVP finalist & a Defensive Player of the Year finalist and led his New Orleans Pelicans to the second round of the playoffs after losing All-Star DeMarcus 'Boogie' Cousins to an achilles injury.

Davis has started off the season on fire - currently averaging 28.0 PPG, 12.4 RPG, 4.7 APG & 2.8 BPG, including 5 games scoring 40 points or more. But Davis' has the risk of falling into the same issue that Harden is running into this season - an MVP candidate needs team success.

The Pelicans are currently sitting 12th in the Western Conference with a record of 15-16. Davis was in consideration last season, not only because he is a dominating player, but his last half of the season where he turned it up along with his then teammates Jrue Holiday, and then teammate Rajan Rondo, and ended up sweeping the favored Portland Trailblazers in the first round of the playoffs, before going down 1-4 to Golden State.

But this season, after losing Boogie & Rondo at the start of the season, and then starting point guard Elfrid Payton to injury, are struggling when they should be flying.

This is not just a matter of team success to get to the playoffs and to keep Davis in MVP contention, but it is also even more important as it is required to have any chance at convincing Anthony Davis to re-sign with New Orleans.

The rumors flying around the league are that if the Pelicans can't keep Davis, they might be saying goodbye to basketball altogether in New Orleans. Its almost funny that Davis' chances at an MVP this season are almost more reliant on his teammates' performance rather than his own, but it may take his performance to rally his troops to push for more wins and to push for more than mediocre basketball in New Orleans.